


Love, Persevering (I'm Dragging You Down With Me)

by Tah the Trickster (TahTheTrickster)



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29913111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TahTheTrickster/pseuds/Tah%20the%20Trickster
Summary: “I did EVERYTHING you asked of me!” she screamed up at the silent glass ceiling before her, pointing up at the ever-watching moon with the hooked tip of her blade in accusation. “I gave up everything for you! And for what?”The moon was silent overhead.---In which Diana is finally granted the chance to mourn all that she has lost. Following "The Vaulted Road" cinematic.
Relationships: Diana/Leona (League of Legends)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Love, Persevering (I'm Dragging You Down With Me)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place following the events of the cinematic [_The Vaulted Road._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UuLD-0lndY) You may wish to watch before proceeding.

It wasn’t fair.

The hot, bitter anger that had been seething beneath her skin began to boil into rage. Diana clenched her jaw to tamp it down, hard enough that she could hear her teeth creak. Her grip on her blade trembled, white-knuckled with rage. Her eyes stung, hot and painful, and the anger bubbling up in her throat was beginning to taste unpleasantly like hurt.

It wasn’t  _ fucking _ fair.

Diana hefted her khopesh and with a scream of effort and anguish ripped the blade through the air before her, sending a shockwave of moonlight slamming outwards into the rock of the old temple walls, splintering stone and shattering the ancient mosaics. The destruction was petty, perhaps, but it felt damn cathartic.

“ _ I did EVERYTHING you asked of me! _ ” she screamed up at the silent glass ceiling before her, pointing up at the ever-watching moon with the hooked tip of her blade in accusation. “I gave up  _ everything _ for you!  _ And for what? _ ” Her breath shook; she threw her blade to the side, letting it clatter noisily over the Lunari tile. Diana slammed the heel of her boot into the flooring, petulant without meaning to be. “ _ Answer me, _ damn you!”

The moon was silent overhead. Diana snarled and turned on her heel. She paced the sanctum she’d once explored so reverently, the heavy heels of her boots echoing in the open space. On her third furious revolution of the chamber she leaned down to swipe up her blade from the floor once more. She’d borne it so long now her arm felt somehow incomplete without it.

Diana felt like a caged beast. Her blood thrummed in her ears so insistently it was as if a dull rumble persisted at the edge of her hearing. It was maddening. The whole situation was...  _ maddening. _

“ _ You _ called me there,” she spat, anger bubbling up in her gut like bile, hot and black and heavy. “I know you did. You and I  _ know _ you—for  _ what? _ ” The last word tore from her throat in a shout. “The Solari—they were there, and I thought—I was so  _ fucking _ sure you called me there to purify them, to make an example of them during the very  _ height _ of our power—and then—and—”

For all the heat of her fury, the memory of those hazel-flecked brown eyes gazing up at her in recognition, in fear, in—in—in something Diana couldn’t even begin to place. That was always how it started with them in the end, wasn’t it? Those damned eyes.

She’d done so  _ well  _ to push past each lingering thought of Leona since the cataclysm in the Solari temple, but it was as if the very sight of her again had broken the dam she’d so stubbornly erected, and the memories came crashing down upon her now.

_ Leona _ .

Leona first waking, delirious, in the infirmary, crying out and reaching out blindly for a raven-haired acolyte scouring the floors.

_ Leona _ .

An auburn-haired teen cackling behind a polite hand as Diana was summarily swatted down to the dusty training room floor again, brown eyes glittering with mirth as she held a hand down for her.

“ _ Cease this! _ ” Diana bellowed into the darkness, pressing a fist against her temple as though to stifle the thoughts herself. Her eyes burned fiercely. Her throat ached. Diana’s jaw tensed so tightly she felt her teeth creak. Her knuckles were bone white on the hilt of her khopesh.

_ Leona _ .

Slightly older, dressed in formal robes of celebration, glancing fondly at Diana across the crowded courtyard, the sun dancing across her braided hair and glinting in her mischievous grin. She’d looked so devastatingly  _ pretty _ with Diana’s sunflower braided back behind her ear.

_ Leona _ .

Scant moments stolen away in shadows and alcoves, quick, chaste kisses and just the scarcest tastes of bare skin. The elders would never have approved of them, never. But Leona didn’t care, and Diana loved her all the more deeply for it.

Diana’s blade dropped to the ground with a clatter, and in short order she dropped to her knees as well. The burn in her eyes had sunk to her throat, and as she’d tried to swallow it back, the aching sear had bloomed into her chest as kindling upon a dwindling flame, and the ache was pure agony.

It tore, finally, from her throat, in an utterly bestial wail, harsh enough to burn her throat as Diana screamed furiously, wretchedly, into the silence of the temple, and her anguish echoed back against her from the broken stone walls.

Leona stroking a thumb along her cheek.

Leona’s hand strong and unwavering at her back.

Leona’s gaze radiant with adoration.

Leona whispering I love you’s in the dark.

Leona.

_ Leona! _

Diana crumpled further, curling into herself as her scream stuttered into hacking, body-wracking sobs, burning eyes squeezed tight as of to hold back the fat, heavy tears that streamed down her cheeks. It hurt. It  _ hurt _ . It hurt so  _ fucking  _ much.

Was this what it was to be the chosen of the Moon? To shoulder grief mortals were never meant to endure? To know joy, to know loss, to know love—and persevere? The unfathomable cruelty shook her breathless.

Diana’s fist slammed uselessly against the cold, uncaring temple floor, body convulsing with another choking, wailing sob. She wanted to throw up to rid her body of this black, burning misery that splintered her veins. She wanted to scream again. She wanted to fall asleep for a thousand years. She wanted—she wanted—

Leona.

She wanted... Leona.

The simplicity of the revelation broke her from her grief with a prolonged gasp of agony.

That was the most wretched part, wasn’t it?

Diana’s hand trembled as she weakly took up her blade again, blood and ichor and moonlight dripping down the hilt from her lacerated fingers.

She understood, and prayed uselessly for ignorance once more.

All she wanted—all she had ever  _ truly wanted _ —was Leona.

And she would never,  _ never _ have her.

**Author's Note:**

> " _Now I'm the night and I am losing control...  
>  If the world found what we came to be  
> Well the world will find a way to take it far from me  
> I don't know if I can make it all on my own...  
> Through every layer of fire I'm dragging you  
> down  
> with  
> me._"  
> ["La Luna" - Azedia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpYQSvbWcI)
> 
> did you know? i love suffering, hurting, and being in extraordinary amounts of pain


End file.
